


The Failed Rebellion

by Temporal_Stellar



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, age of winter, au: the world in which we fight, death and more death, the failed rebellion of 965
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-29
Updated: 2018-11-29
Packaged: 2019-09-02 07:37:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16782553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Temporal_Stellar/pseuds/Temporal_Stellar
Summary: In the Narnian Year 965 of the Age of Winter, the White Witch faced an uprising. The Narnians who still remember a time before her rule, and believe in Aslan, have built an army the North West of the world. This is a record of the ensuing battle between the loyal Narnians and Jadis' forces. Canon Compliant. One Shot.





	The Failed Rebellion

**Author's Note:**

> After creating a gifset for this very event, I have decided to create a fic about it. It's a little unconventional in terms of fanfictions but I am happy with it. It also works with my other Narnia fic - The Eternal Winter, so if you are wondering what the beginning is referencing it is that story.  
> I have had this Beta'd (by @aliciarosefantasy on Tumblr) so any mistakes are my own.

In the Northern reaches of turbulent lands of the Western Wilds, there was an army. Not as an army as you or I would know it, but merely a gathering numbering in the hundreds not made up of soldiers, but of a variety of people of whom were from a lone country - Narnia.

* * *

Once Narnia had prospered, the land was lush, the people were happy and they were a friend to all. Then Jadis came, a witch who had been plotting her rise to power for centuries. She destroyed Narnia from within, destroying records and seeding doubts into the minds of many a Narnian until one day they no longer saw their monarch as their leader.

It was then she appeared as if to save Narnia from the brink of ruin. She came with promises of a new age, one where Narnians would live in a fair world where they would come before the children of Man.

Many flocked to her to aid, building an army out the reach of the Narnian army in the lands beyond the Marches of the Wiggles. By the time, the military responded it was too late, Jadis had taken Narnia. Attempts were made to stop her, brave Narnians stood against her attempting to prevent her coronation and many were killed including the monarch of that time.

Two years passed, Jadis had not yet taken the throne rather she still faced resistance. In a final stand the remnants’ of the Narnian forces, and others who stood against the Witch, faced their own brethren in the hopes of killing Jadis and making way for a new monarch. However, the battle of the two hills did not go well for the Witch now had a weapon where she could turn her opposition to stone. Thus the Age of Conquest ended and the Age of Winter began.

* * *

It had been sixty-five years since that hated battle, and since Jadis had instated herself Queen of Narnia fashioning herself as a Daughter of Eve as the reason for her claim to the throne. Still, there were those who remembered that battle, those who remembered the Age of Conquest and those who were willing to do anything to rid Narnia of the Witch once and for all.

And so, the Narnians hatched a plan. One by one, the rebels went west into the Western Wilds, where the Witch had no power, where the Winters were not eternal. They then headed North nearing a waterfall, to the place the stories of old spoke of.

This was a place where the Witch had been in the long past, where she had bitten into a forbidden apple and thus started her exile from Narnia. That was the very reason so many had gathered here, for they knew that their presence would be missed, thus the Witch would send scouts to investigate and eventually an army would come to face them.

Upon first hearing, this may sound like a flawed plan, after all the army of Jadis far outnumbered them and unlike the Narnians were trained in combat. However, this plan also involved a second group of former Narnian soldiers who waited at the base of the Great River. Once the Witch left her castle the soldiers would take it, then ride Northwest to take enemy forces from behind.

All this was done in the hopes they could once again force the Witch into exile, for the Narnians believed if they got her to face the lands that bound her before, it may do so again. Thus breaking her spell on Narnia and allowing its people to instate a new fair monarch who would rule over all of Narnia.

When the time came they all thought they would be ready, and that they were but they forgot one thing – The Prophecy.

* * *

The army at the base of the Great River came first. For they had not been as decreed as they believed, a lone fox had spotted their encampment and rushed straight to the Witch informing her of the force in exchange for the bounty on him to be dropped.

The destruction of the river camp was swift. A force of wolves, dwarves and minotaurs came in the middle of the night. The dwarves drew their bows silently killing the sentries, the minotaurs then charged in killing all in their path, burning the camp to the ground while the wolves hunted anyone who fled the battle. Very few survived, those who did went so deep into hiding they would not be heard from by anyone for nearly thirty-five years.

Upon their victory, the Witch’s soldiers smashed their weapons into the ground over and over, cracking their ice, until the camp and its occupants sank into the river and were washed away. It was then they returned to the pointed between the two hills, where the Narnians had once led their last stand and where the Castle of Jadis stood.

They left it a week, waiting to see what their enemy would do next – to see in those in the North knew what happened to their allies in the South.

Nothing happened. The forces of the North heard nothing of the destruction of the river camp, as no one did for over thirty years.

* * *

The military might of the White Witch headed North-West, lead by Jadis herself. She left her Secret Police behind in case of another trick but went ahead, her mind unclouded by fear with the knowledge it was not yet the time of The Prophecy.

That was when the Battle of the Western Wilds came to pass, which would later be known as The Failed Rebellion. Jadis’s forces had struggled to trek to hostile terrain of the Western Wilds, these soldiers were used to the cold unyielding cold of the eternal winter and not the damp, humid lands of the West. This led several of the soldiers to end up what, in our world is known as Trench Foot, their feet were almost constantly wet and became a haven for mould and infection. Little could be done for these soldiers, much of the knowledge regarding healing had been lost upon the winter’s start, and so they were left behind.

Progress was also slow, while the Witch was somewhat familiar with these lands, she could not see a reason why she should do the work. Thus, others were forced to bring food from their kingdom and to navigate their way.

It took two weeks to reach the site of the rebels encampment, a week longer than they were expecting but it made no difference. The rebels were still blissfully unaware of their presence and had heard nothing from Narnia itself so they assumed the Witch had not learned of them yet.

It was then, upon the top of a cliff looking down at the camp that the Witch’s forces was spotted. A centaur that had been patrolling the area saw the dwarves who had taken refuge in the treetops to monitor the rebels operations.

Upon their sighting, the young centaur had run, not stopping for anything and informed her comrades of what she had seen.

The Rebels came to know fear; they had been expecting the Witch so soon and had heard nothing from their allies in the south. It was then they realised that they must have been destroyed. There was much debate about what to do next, they knew that it was unlikely they could win against Jadis and her soldiers. So they did what they felt was best, over a quarter of their number returned to Narnia, most of whom were children who had accompanied their parents with them was the hope that Narnia could one day be restored.

The rest remained and prepared for battle. This may seem folly, for they knew they could not survive, but that was exactly the reason they did so. In the past, Jadis had painted herself as the saviour of Narnia, an immortal human, a servant of the Emperor-over-the-sea who did what was best for the Narnian people. By fighting her today, they would plant to a seed of doubt for the future, demonstrating to many in Narnia that she was not the merciful and benevolent queen they all believed she was.

That night the rebels took apart their camp and organised themselves. They knew that an ambush would be impossible, and the Witch’s forces were stronger by night than by day due to how they were used to the darkness provided by the constant overcast in Narnia itself.

The Narnian forces were split, the archers kept back some were in the trees so they could take the enemy by surprise but those who could not climb the trees stayed scattered across the ground with the intent of using the trees as a means of confusing the enemy by constantly moving. The cavalry, which used be forces made up of centaurs and men on horses and was now just a force of centaurs, a handful of Talking Horses and a lone Unicorn, was to split in two and attack from the sides and behind thus surrounding the enemy. At the front were the ground forces, mostly made up of fauns and satyrs but with some dryads and other Talking Animals. They were there to lead to assault and felt that they were likely the first to fall as their spears and leather armour would likely do little against the weaponry and magic of the Witch.

It was there, in the middle of a forest near the edge of a cliff in the Western Wilds the Rebellion failed. It started with a stalemate, the Witch at the front of her force glaring at her opponent daring them to attack her. They didn’t, and for some reason that they could not comprehend, she did not attack them either. Both forces were buying time, Jadis was allowing time for her archers to take a position from above and the Narnians were waiting for their Cavalry to surround the Witch.

Once the Cavalry were in position, the battle began as expected they took her by surprise surrounding them on all sides. The ground forces then charged heading straight for the Witch herself, still, she did not move. That was when her archers began to fire killing the charge weakening their frontal assault, so when the time came the minotaurs matched to the front of her line creating an indestructible wall of protection from those on the ground.

That was when the Narnian archers began to hit, the Witch’s forces at the back were beginning to strengthen again having seen how well it was going at the front. Round the back of Jadis’s army, the Cavalry began to pull out, drawing out many of the hags, wer-wolves, and Talking Animals present and allowing the archers to pick them off one by one until the few that remained were slaughtered by the regrouped Cavalry that was no longer weakened by being spread too thin.

The Cavalry formed wedge formation driving back into behind the Witch’s force in the hopes of creating a gap in the wall of minotaurs that were causing such destruction at the front. The archers fired, the horses charged and then the Witch span round to be facing a large male centaur. She sidestepped, coming off her chariot with ease, forcing the centaur to miss his killing blow and with a tap of her wand the first Narnian on the field of battle turned to stone. She continued this path, with the shield of the minotaurs behind her she regrouped her forces against the Narnian Cavalry with a vengeance. Left, right and centre horses and centaurs would freeze up, turning steadily grey, as the Witch’s magic turned them into statues. Not one on that day thought to attempt to destroy the wand, rather their focus was on the Witch herself, none would realise that this was the source of her power for decades.

The Cavalry was reduced to nothing, only a few centaurs and the unicorn fled and survived as whilst they fled the dwarf archers shot them, and their ground archers, down. Their own archers were being taken by the other archers, or by a group of minotaurs who grew tired of the front and took to felling the very trees the archers took refuge.

All that remained of the Narnian were the ground forces at the front, of which there were less than twenty, they were easily surrounded by their enemy who shot and sliced until none survived.

Only thirty or so survived that battle, but while few survived, the Narnian Army had taken over half the Witch’s force with them.

The forest never forgot the sight that Witch left behind, bodies upon bodies, flags with the red lion on them were scattered across the field and the ground was wet with blood. None of the people who fell that day were buried.

The statues would remain there for decades until they were forgotten, and then as if by a miracle thirty-five years later the people who had once been stone found themselves breathing again. They were uncertain as they were alive again, but all they knew that as they cheered at their reunion they saw the shadow of a Great Cat passing by.

These were the people who would later tell the Kings and Queens of this battle, and how they had attempted to exile the Witch and possibly destroy her. They heard from their kin that it had been hopeless, as it hadn’t been the time of The Prophecy but their cause had not been in vain. 

The event was known as The Failed Rebellion of the Age of Winter, but unbeknownst to Jadis herself, it was not a failure at all. The Rebellion gave the people of Narnia hope and gave them a cause to rally once again in a battle upon the fields of Beruna, one where the Witch, after a hundred year reign, met her end.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you all for reading, I hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
